Corner of Third and Railroad Streets

This is where Pop, Grandma, Mom and her two sisters (Phyllis and Shirley) spent most of their growing up years. I also spent the first two and half years of my life here, too. For reasons that I still don't understand, my dear old father and mother parted company before I was born. To this day, I have never met the man who I should call father.

Living on Third Street was fun and full of lots and lots of attention for me. While mom was working days at the local bank, I was cared for by not only my grandmother but two adoring high school age aunts. Who could ask for more?

This is the house where I was potty trained by the time I was one year of age. That still must hold some kind of record. I remember being placed on the potty chair for extended periods of time (and until I did my business) and yelling out periodically to who ever could hear me, "Can I get off now?!" For whoever was home, this was one hell of a baby sitting device. For while, I surely had to have spent half of my waking hours on the potty.

There is one day that sticks in my memory during the time mom and I lived on Third Street. On this day I somewhere in the upstairs of our home when a loud commotion broke out downstairs. There was lots of yelling, screaming, hollering . . . all joyous but nevertheless it really scared me. Never one to miss anything that happened in the house, I ran downstairs to see what was happening. My mom, her sisters, grandma and Pop were all dancing around the house, whooping, hollering like they were nuts. I'd never seen them act this way before.

Being less than 3 feet tall it took a while to get my mom's attention. The usual pulling at her skirt wasn't working this time. Sensing that I was coming a bit unraveled because of the noise, mom stopped what she was doing, leaned down to me and in response to my question of "What's wrong?" said simply, "The war is over". That day would have been August 14th, 1945: Victory in Japan Day. It's a day that I'll never forget.